An airport shuttle bus driver from Aurora who plotted to detonate potent explosives in New York’s subway system pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a “martyrdom operation” that authorities called one of the most serious terrorism plots on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

Najibullah Zazi said he had decided “I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the U.S. military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan.”

The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. He also agreed to share information about confederates overseas. He faces a life prison sentence without parole at a sentencing in June.

Zazi’s plea in a Brooklyn courtroom gave the Obama administration a new argument in its battle with Republican critics and predecessors over its handling of national-security threats.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the deal demonstrated anew the ability of the U.S. court system to dispense justice to terrorists.

“In this case, as it has in so many other cases, the criminal justice system has proved to be an invaluable weapon for disrupting plots and incapacitating terrorists, one that works in concert with the intelligence community and our military,” Holder said at a news conference.

Getting Zazi to talk

Law enforcement sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation continues, said Zazi began to accelerate his cooperation after authorities charged his Afghan-born father, also of Aurora, with crimes and threatened to charge his mother with immigration offenses — options that are not available in the military justice system.

Federal prosecutors kept their plea agreement with Zazi under seal, but new details about the path that led the Aurora man into terrorism emerged in court.

Zazi, an Afghan immigrant residing legally in the U.S., traveled to an al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan in August 2008 to receive weapons training so he could fight alongside the Taliban, according to Justice Department and FBI officials. But jihadists redirected him and two confederates to focus their energies on a suicide attack on the U.S. mainland.

Zazi returned to Colorado in January 2009 with notes on how to mix explosive chemicals. He procured large volumes of beauty supplies from stores in the Denver area, supplies that contained hydrogen peroxide to make TATP, the explosive involved in the 2005 bombings of London’s transit system, authorities said. The final stages of the plot came into focus in September, Holder said, when Zazi drove a rented car to New York, days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Asked by federal Judge Raymond J. Dearie whether he had been willing to be a suicide bomber, Zazi said, “Yes, your honor.”

Zazi aroused the interest of law enforcement, and he was tracked by teams of FBI agents and police, who stopped his vehicle on a bridge into Manhattan. Justice Department officials said for the first time Monday that Zazi and others had timed their plot to occur in the subway on Sept. 14, 15 or 16 but backed away after realizing that they were under surveillance and disposed of the explosives.

FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told reporters that the Zazi case and intelligence provided by the defendant have “given us all greater insight into the evolving nature of terrorist activities.”

Others charged in the terror case include Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, who was accused this month of trying to get rid of chemicals and other evidence. He has been released on $50,000 bond and allowed to return to Colorado.

By contrast, bond for a Queens imam charged with lying to the FBI about phone contact with Zazi when Zazi was in New York was set at $1.5 million. A friend of Zazi’s, New York cabdriver Zarein Ahmed zay, was jailed without bail on a similar lying charge.

Officials earlier confirmed reports that Zazi’s uncle had been arraigned on a felony count in secret — a sign that he also could be cooperating.

“Plea speaks for itself”

After Monday’s hearing, Najibullah Zazi’s attorney, William Stampur, would say only: “The plea speaks for itself.” The written plea agreement is sealed.

Arthur Folsom, Zazi’s Colorado attorney, said he was not surprised his former client pleaded guilty.

“That’s kind of where it was heading from the first minute I started working on it,” Folsom said. “My former client from the very beginning was willing to talk to them and tell them what he had done and what his involvement was.”

Zazi, however, had told his attorney he had gotten rid of all of the explosives by the time he had traveled to New York. In court Monday, Zazi said he had brought the bomb-making materials with him.

Folsom said he had been under the assumption Zazi had given up his plans and was being prosecuted for something he was never intending to do. But upon hearing Zazi’s plea, Folsom has a different view.

“If that’s true, then it certainly changes my opinion of things,” he said. “There is a big difference in my mind about someone who thinks about doing something wrong and doesn’t do it, and someone who thinks about doing something and doesn’t do it because they get caught. That is a world of difference.”

More in News

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Saturday there was “incontrovertible” evidence of a Russian plot to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election, a blunt statement that shows how significantly the new criminal charges leveled by an American investigator have upended the political debate over his inquiry.

The University of Colorado leadership is grappling with how to address a nationwide nosedive in the favorability of higher education — particularly, among conservatives — as CU’s own representatives and decision-makers disagree on what’s behind the downturn.